GMAT Argument写作范文(3)

　　GMAT Argument Writing Samples

　　3. In this argument the author concludes that the city should allocate some of its arts funding to public television. The conclusion is based on two facts: attendance at the citys art museum has increased proportionally with the increases in visual-arts program viewing on public television, and public television is being threatened by severe cuts in corporate funding. White this argument is somewhat convincing, a few concerns need to be addressed.

　　To begin with, the argument depends on the assumption that increased exposure to the visual arts on television, mainly public television, has caused a similar increase in local art-museum attendance. However, just because increased art-museum attendance can be statistically correlated with similar increases in television viewing of visual-arts programs, this does not necessarily mean that the increased television viewing of arts is the cause of the rise in museum attendance.

　　Moreover, perhaps there are other factors relevant to increased interest in the local art museum; for instance, maybe a new director had procured more interesting, exciting acquisitions and exhibits during the period when museum attendance increased, in addition, the author could be overlooking a common cause of both increases. It is possible that some larger social or cultural phenomenon is responsible for greater public interest in both television arts programming and municipal art museums.

　　To be fair, however, we must recognize that the authors assumption is a special case of a more general one that television viewing affects peoples attitudes and behavior. Common sense and observation tells me that this is indeed the case. After all, advertisers spend billions of dollars on television ad time because they trust this assumption as well.

　　In conclusion, I am somewhat persuaded by this authors line of reasoning. The argument would be strengthened if the author were to consider and rule out other significant factors that might have caused the increase in visits to the local art museum.